As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
A key component of almost every information handling system is the basic input/output system (BIOS). A BIOS may be a system, device, or apparatus configured to identify, test, and/or initialize one or more information handling resources of an information handling system, typically during boot up or power on of an information handling system. A BIOS may include boot firmware configured to be the first code executed by a processor of an information handling system when the information handling system is booted and/or powered on. As part of its initialization functionality, BIOS code may be configured to set components of the information handling system into a known state, so that one or more applications (e.g., an operating system or other application programs) stored on compatible media may be executed by a processor and given control of the information handling system and its various components.
Typically, a BIOS is stored in a memory, such as a serial peripheral interface (SPI) flash memory. From time to time, portions of executable code in a BIOS may be updated. Often when a new BIOS version is released, a relatively small portion of the BIOS is actually changed. However, because much of the BIOS code is compressed and packed into a small number of firmware volumes in the BIOS memory, small changes may cause much of the BIOS memory contents to change, causing much of the BIOS memory to be erased and reprogrammed during a BIOS update. As BIOS memory sizes increase, BIOS update times may also increase.